Do I have any leverage here?

Linenpickle · 30/09/2025 07:16

Speak to estate agents and get them to push? Tell sellers they are at risk of the sale falling through? Give some hard deadlines?

isthesolution · 30/09/2025 07:18

Give them a deadline? We need to be moved by 1 Nov - is there any reason that shouldn’t be possible?

TMMC1 · 30/09/2025 14:40

tell her to change solicitor or you will withdraw your offer.

Aquickturn81 · 02/10/2025 08:16

Seller is frustrated as am I

really? And yet hasn’t changed their solicitors or seemingly applied any pressure to their solicitors

outdooryone · 02/10/2025 09:46

As someone in the midst of an equally 'easy' sale and purchase, you have my commiserations over the legal profession and their approach to providing a 'service'....

I engaged a company I have used before - after 3.5 weeks they had not even sent me the contract to engage them, let alone start work on the sale. They seemed surprised I decided to go with someone else...
My new company, recommended by many people, are very old school.

Everything is paper or a hodge podge of pdf and word. I have filled in FOUR forms with my name, address, phone, NI number etc for four different 'departments' (the departments are people on another desk in the same building...) They NEVER update unless I ask - so basic things like I suggested a completion date as soon as offers were accepted - but it took three weeks for me to nudge them and say 'are we working to November the 10th?' to get a confirmation.

My father is working through a sale and it has emerged that his buyers have a small solicitors with two partners - who do not get on and have the client and estate agent communicating back and forth between the partners!

It really seems the legal process of buying and selling is archaic (why are records for searches not digitised for example...?) and the culture in the industry is one of self-importance, lack of customer service or care, and frankly happy to charge £000's for what is little more than administration work for most sales these days.

StewkeyBlue · 02/10/2025 10:39

Get on to the sellers Estate Agent. They are the ones who don’t get paid if the sale falls through. And it is their job to support the progress of the sale as well as finding a buyer.

Tell them you will start to look at other properties.

Unless the house was marketed through Purple Bricks or similar and the vendor is using their ‘conveyancing service’?

In which case I would tell the vendor ‘get a proper solicitor within a week or I am looking at other properties’

TheSandgroper · 02/10/2025 11:51

I would be asking the estate agent what other properties he has on his books because you are in the market to buy.

Original poster

Spampas · 02/10/2025 13:12

@outdooryone this is very much my experience. In Canada you complete on a purchase within a month of your offer being accepted. It’s a total joke over here.

OP posts:

Cooksmart · 02/10/2025 15:09

Spampas · 02/10/2025 13:12

@outdooryone this is very much my experience. In Canada you complete on a purchase within a month of your offer being accepted. It’s a total joke over here.

Well it looks like your seller chose a crap solicitor AND doesn’t chase them

Nerdippy · 02/10/2025 15:36

Spampas · 30/09/2025 07:07

I am buying a property which is a cash purchase with no upward or onward chain. It is a new house (5 years old). It should be a really easy purchase. I love the house and it is perfect in every way.

Seller's solicitors are being really slow - e.g. took two months to reply to my solicitor's information request. A lot of their responses have been vague and sometimes dismissive. It's been 14 weeks since my offer was accepted and we are not yet close to exchange.

Seller is frustrated as am I. Is there anything I can say or do to get her solicitors to get their arses in gear?

You should understand that a cash purchase and no chain either side doesn't always mean a quick transaction.

A new house (5 years old) is likely to come with a third party Managing Agent for the communal areas/estate roads/lighting etc. If it does, then there will lots of information needed by your solicitor from the Managing Agent to pass onto to you as the buyer.

You will need to know how much you would be paying for this service, how much it might increase by, whether the roads are likely to be adopted etc. The solicitor will want to see the accounts for the previous three years and whether there are any covenants/deed of variation that you have to enter into before you complete.

Information from the Managing Agent is provided to the seller's solicitor, who then passes it on to your solicitor, which takes time. The Managing Agent has no incentive to respond quickly and they often respond as and when they see fit. Neither your solicitor the seller's solicitor can force them to respond at a timescale to suit you.

Also, the solicitor will be checking the title. Do the seller's have a HTB equity loan that needs to be repaid? If so, there will be a further third party involved in the transaction. The seller's will need to obtain a RICS valuation for the equity loan company and there will be significant paperwork to complete in order that the equity loan is repaid out of the sale proceeds and that the charge on the title is removed. It all takes time, especially as the equity loan agent also has no incentive to respond at your preferred timescale. It will get done as and when they want to.

Sometimes, it isn't the solicitors being slow, it's because third parties need to respond to enquiries and will do so in their own sweet time.

canyon2000 · 02/10/2025 16:35

Nerdippy · 02/10/2025 15:36

You should understand that a cash purchase and no chain either side doesn't always mean a quick transaction.

A new house (5 years old) is likely to come with a third party Managing Agent for the communal areas/estate roads/lighting etc. If it does, then there will lots of information needed by your solicitor from the Managing Agent to pass onto to you as the buyer.

You will need to know how much you would be paying for this service, how much it might increase by, whether the roads are likely to be adopted etc. The solicitor will want to see the accounts for the previous three years and whether there are any covenants/deed of variation that you have to enter into before you complete.

Information from the Managing Agent is provided to the seller's solicitor, who then passes it on to your solicitor, which takes time. The Managing Agent has no incentive to respond quickly and they often respond as and when they see fit. Neither your solicitor the seller's solicitor can force them to respond at a timescale to suit you.

Also, the solicitor will be checking the title. Do the seller's have a HTB equity loan that needs to be repaid? If so, there will be a further third party involved in the transaction. The seller's will need to obtain a RICS valuation for the equity loan company and there will be significant paperwork to complete in order that the equity loan is repaid out of the sale proceeds and that the charge on the title is removed. It all takes time, especially as the equity loan agent also has no incentive to respond at your preferred timescale. It will get done as and when they want to.

Sometimes, it isn't the solicitors being slow, it's because third parties need to respond to enquiries and will do so in their own sweet time.

Show quote history

This has not been my experience with management agencies. The house we are selling (47 years old) and the house we are buying (15 years old) are both with management agencies and they have been very quick to supply all the information required in a pack to the solicitors.